Author Gaby Soutar

  My name-that-tune rendition of Baker Street’s instrumental break isn’t going well.   Nellie the Elephant? Coronation Street theme tune?   Unfortunately, the autopilot on my...

You’ll find a cauldron of bats and a prudence of vicars in this new venue’s radius. I’m thinking of ecclesiastical collective nouns, since there’s a congregation of four churches on Edinburgh’s...

My driving instructor chain-smoked menthol cigarettes and barely spoke. I blame her for the teenage me failing my driving test three times, then giving up permanently. Still, I may not have wheels, but...

The kids talk about YOLO (you only live once) and FOMO (fear of missing out). As a middle aged person, I’m more into POMO (pleasure of missing out). There’s something extremely satisfying about...

“Here in Edinburgh people have fun everyday and we have added one more place to have fun,” it says on the website of the new Indian street food restaurant, Masti. I feel like such a party pooper, but as...

I wish I’d brought a comb. After a walk on nearby Elie beach, my hair is as knotted and fibrous as an owl pellet. That’d be bearable, as the Kinneuchar Inn – a whitewashed 17th century building...

Barbra Streisand had her dog, Samantha, cloned. The results were Miss Violet and Miss Scarlet. She also has a third Coton de Tulear, Miss Fanny, created in a no-petri-dish-involved style. (I just wanted...

When I was at Edinburgh College of Art in the Nineties, our department took a trip to London. Among other things, we were going to visit the studio of an alumnus – the Italian Scots sculptor Eduardo...

  An editor once asked me to start rating restaurants out of five according to how dog-friendly they were.   Two points might mean, we allow them in, but there will be no petting permitted,...

After a nasty bout of sciatica, I don’t do standing in queues. The one at this new Bross Bagels, which also has outlets on Leith Walk, Portobello High Street and Queensferry Street, snaked out the door...